There are a few splendid natural areas. One, in the west near the Caspian is similar to a vast region in Kazakhstan called Mangystau. And there is a mountainous bit to the east. Few tourists visit these anyway.

So, an itinerary in Turkmenistan typically offers four cultural experiences, two of which are unique and two of which are common but eye-opening.

Holes

You would think, based on the local hype, that Darvaza Crater, the so-called “Gates of Hell,” would be some ancient fiery pit to which the Zoroastrian priests prayed. Or a natural emergence of gas long ago, as in Azerbaijan and other locales.

Not quite. Not only does the hole – and its two kindred holes nearby of either mud or water– date from just 1971. Not only was the crater man-made by engineers who erred in excavating it as a source of natural gas. But it’s now just a scattered set of flareups amid the ashy center of the crater – perhaps just a quarter of the spectacle of the past. And it only takes a couple of minutes to walk around.

And the government is trying to quench those fires to prevent more methane pollution.

Sure, it glows in the dark and has a story to tell. But it’s hardly worth spending two days on wretched roads and an overnight at low quality yurt camps. Here’s a few minute sample of the four hour ride back to Ashgabat…

The desert can be interesting in itself, but didn’t seem to offer the beauty of other rich deserts we have seen.

Word is that a new road is coming, but what will one see when the methane flow is stopped, other than an historic glow?

Horses

The people here are very proud of their horses, a unique breed dating back 3000 years called Akhal-Teke. The fewer than 7000 of the breed are noted for speed, endurance, and intelligence. Their image appears in sculptures, adorns many (white) buildings in Ashgabat, and graces some of the currency.

Also, in the image of the long-time leader’s own horse Yanadag, this breed appears in the center of the national emblem along with the ubiquitous eight-pointed star of peace and plenty.

They are beautiful animals, with sleek, nearly metallic coats that can seem transparent. But the typical horse encounter is more snack and tea than horse. Groups of tourists troupe in, spend a half hour or so snacking, and then perhaps a half-hour watching a horse parade around. On the plus side, they are able to touch that horse to share in the traditional good fortune that the breed is said to bring.

We preferred to wander the stables and barn to see a number of these horses, including a unusual white one amid the auburn coats. The white even scared us a bit with a kind of devilish blue iris in its white eye.

At least he would fit well into Ashgabat, the very white city.

Cooking with family

A more intimate and personable experience is the opportunity to cook with a local family. We have had the chance elsewhere to learn some cooking skills while preparing local specialties. Here, the experience offered by a farmer and his daughter-in-law was more like being a sous-chef in a limited prep.

But it was fun to knead and cut dough for preparing crispy pishme, the essence of hospitality in a local household, and then frying the pieces in a deep bowl of hot oil. Then cutting up very thin strips of noodles to add to a soup, which was actually made in the backroom, not with us.

Perhaps more interesting were the glimpses of Turkmen culture. The daughter-in-law wore a kerchief over her mouth, not for hygienic purposes, but as a sign of deference to her father-in-law to whom she was not supposed to speak. Like most women here (and in several other countries of Central Asia), she went to school through 8^th grade, but then was expected to become a stay-at-home wife (and mother to three to six children). We frequently heard about wives who were “not very educated” but did what the culture asked of them domestically.

On the other hand, the farmer’s 12-year-old daughter (like many young people now, quite overweight) visited with us after the cooking in order to demonstrate her English capability. She planned to be a musician and writer in the future. We’d love to know how that will go.

Music and Dance

Another tourist industry across the globe is the presentation of folk dances and music. Sometimes the performances are akin to those given at local gatherings for religious or cultural celebrations. But our ears hear a very different kind of music in shops and for prerecorded music chosen in cars. Western rock and rap in English contend for local appeal with pop songs and more rap in the native language.

We heard some good music in Kyrgyzstan from a family of musicians (see that video), and here in Turkmenistan just happened to catch a showy display of dancing with flamboyant accompaniment. The performance might have been historically correct but seemed a lot more like a Broadway version of the traditional material in order to delight the tourists.

There is certainly some entertainment and cultural value to all this, but we couldn’t help thinking that most of the tourist offerings in Turkmenistan are just filler for the main reasons people want to visit the country. We learned even more from its mundane locales: the open air markets like the Russian bazaar, a languishing Ferris wheel, a grocery and alcohol shop, a regional library, and walking the streets.

For more posts from Turkmenistan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

Sadly, their cities have survived better in accounts of the past rather than in physical remains, or been revived in re-creations - after all the destruction by natural forces, succeeding empires, as well as the Golden Horde of the Mongols. Perhaps archeologists in the future will reveal much more.

But it’s still a thrill to walk amid the clay bricks or sandy dust of such towering achievements and glimpse through artifacts what must have been. In Turkmenistan, we visited three such World Heritage locales.

Parthian Nisa

The most heavily restored site to help the imagination was Nisa, dating from the 3^rd century BC. This was a fortified city of the Parthians, who occupied the area now in northern Iran and Turkmenistan but shared in the Hellenistic culture. The site is a short drive from Ashgabat.

Excavations of Nisa’s sizable area revealed spectacular examples of drinking vessels (or rhytons)…

…and Greek-influenced sculptures, now in the Ashgabat history museum.

Old brick walls that survived an earthquake which toppled much of the town have been built up with clay and straw to show what it probably looked like. Some brick columns still stand.

From the dirt hill that once was a city wall, this vista gives an overview of the central palace or sanctuary of old Nisa with the desert dissolving in the distance and the lovely Kopet Dagh mountains on the far right. Toward the center, where a group is standing, a gateway within the sculpted walls leads to a temple area used by Zoroastrian fire worshippers. In this restoration, we could walk the linked hallways to get a feel for the basic construction methods, that otherwise could not withstand erosion of the walls into clay over time.

A view of a passageway we could not enter in the condition uncovered by archaeologists.

The rest stays largely buried in the surrounding desert.

Konye-Urgench

In the north of Turkmenistan near the Uzbekistan border, this city was the capital of the Khwarezm empire from the 12^th to the 16^th centuries, though destroyed after the Mongol invasion and Timur’s conquests in the middle of that period. Khwarezm then shifted its capital to Khiva in modern Uzbekistan. (Click to read that earlier post.)

Though the area that “Old Urgench” covered is vast, sadly only a handful of buildings remain today, structures that influenced not only Khiva’s style, but also Iran, Afghanistan, and the Mughals in India.

The largest, and most magnificent building is the Turabek-Khanum Mausoleum, where the devout still come to pray. Its impressive brickwork was once adorned with the blue tiles later common across Uzbekistan. Now it has deteriorated enough that pigeons occupy its broken spaces, and it has been closed for repairs.

One other large structure still rivals it for attention: that’s the impressive minaret last rebuilt in the 14^th century, with its own notable brickwork at various levels. Rising 60 meters (200 feet) high, and with a base of 12 meters (30 feet) in diameter, it dominates the site. Many (like the tiny figure in this picture) come to circle the base in devotion.

Off in the distance, a much, much smaller 12th century mausoleum with a conical top is charming due to its own brick architecture.

The only surviving gate of the city is simpler, but is in good shape, with adjacent rehab work aiming to show more of its function in the past.

Merv

Our itinerary sometimes said Merv and sometime said Mary, but we didn’t understand until we visited what was correct. Short answer is both. This region is also part of Khwarezm.

Mary is the contemporary city close to ancient Merv in the southeastern desert of Turkmenistan, not quite as bleached white as Ashgabat, but nearly. (Read about Ashgabat and Mary.)

Part of the Khwarezm empire, Merv, dates back millennia and thrived during the Islamic Golden Age of the 11^th and 12^th centuries. To add a little extra confusion, it was known as Merghuz then. Under the Turkmen Seljuks’ rule, this important oasis - celebrated as the “Mother of Cities” - attracted Silk Road trade between East and West and scholarship from across the Muslim world. Among others, the famous poet Omar Khayyam worked here.

The remains of Merv are also scattered over a massive area, some 300 hectares within the old fortified city alone. Yet, just like the other imperial UNESCO sites in Turkmenistan, few buildings remain to be seen.

What makes Merv special is its visual record of centuries of importance in the region – from those same Parthians of Nisa around the time of Alexander the Great and onward, despite near obliteration by the Mongols in the 13th century. The city rebuilt until the 15^th century but, by the 18^th, what endured was destroyed once more by the Uzbek Khans.

There is nothing to see from the much earlier Bronze Age here, when Merv began, though many artifacts have been unearthed from that period and the later Parthian one, viewable in the Mary museum.

Yet one can still stand within the huge fort of the Parthians.

To survey the grand space of the fort, we climbed a steep rampart of clay and dirt, the dissolved bricks of the past – and gained a vista over all the later centuries of Merv.

Leaping ahead to the 9^th century before the Seljuks, the purpose of this unusual, now wonderfully refreshed building called the Great Kyz Kala, is up for debate. Most likely it was a huge palace for the royal family and entourage. The name, however, means “maiden’s castle” due to the local version of a Turkmen legend about star-crossed lovers who are kept apart. This legend seems to find some fitting site in many other countries.

Inside the rough interior, today, one can see a kind of atrium from which small rooms branch off. Outside, one can imagine - even from the unadorned clay that matches the desert sand in color - how impressive it was in its prime.

But our guide used AI to re-imagine the city back in its Golden Age. Great Kyz Kala is on the left of the re-created space, with other mausoleums and mosques along the same street.

By the 11^th century, the city then called Sultan Kala was enclosed in studier walls by the Abbasid Muslims, just before the Turkmen Seljuks took over.

Large sections of the walls stand in surprisingly good condition today, some 9 meters high (30 feet) spanning several kilometers on each side, it seems. Round turrets added defensive positions at regular intervals. Photobombing this view is the Sultan Sanjar Mausoleum from the 12th century.

That mausoleum is in the best state of preservation of all the buildings at Merv and was an early model for later mausoleums in the region. Its wonderful archways on the outside ring a large central dome with an eight-sided support system inside. Not until Brunelleschi designed the dome in Florence some 300 years later was anything similar built in Europe. The turquoise gleam of the dome’s exterior reputedly acted as a sunlit beacon, visible to caravans from a day’s walk away.

The interior decoration turns the dome’s support system into the pattern of the eight-pointed star of Islam.

Another mausoleum, that of Muhammad Ibn Zayd from the 12^th century, just preceded the onslaught of Genghis Khan. It is nearly hidden by the crumbling walls of a smaller palace like Kyzyl Kala and a strange conical mud hut like a Buddhist stupa that we mistook for the tomb. The mausoleum is not much to look at on the outside, though the brick patterns are soothing and the three domes are unusual.

The streamers tied outside represent prayers for healing by devout visitors. They recall similar cloths tied outside Buddhist temples in other locations. It reminded us that Buddhism was prevalent here before the 7^th century takeover by the Muslims.

The interior of ibn Zayd is the real treasure. It may lack the original decoration and retains just a hint of its painted color and tile. However, the three domes are beautifully fashioned with brick as are the old clay tile inscriptions in Arabic that line the upper part of the largest chamber.

One small chamber is especially vibrant, with similar brick on its dome and a curtain wall that subtly alludes to the three major Abrahamic religions (the eight-pointed star ubiquitous in Ashgabat, the Star of David, and the Cross) along with the two triangles of Zoroastrianism.

To complete our wander through time, we visited a relatively modern pair of tombs from the 15^th century. Honoring some very special founders of Islam, these were built during the Timurid revival after the Mongols and are typical of other such buildings in Timurid Uzbekistan.

The two arched portals, 12 meters (40 feet) high, were once decorated in the blue tiles familiar from Uzbekistan. Below simple tombstones in front of the portals are buried two important apostles of the new religion in the 7^th century. Abu Abdullah Bureyda was himself a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who came to this area to convert the people and teach. We visited the town named for him in Saudi Arabia.

Soon Merv faded and was no more, except for what we could see across nearly 2000 years of its renown – from the Parthian fort we stood on to the Timurid tombs of Islam’s revered founders.

For more posts from Turkmenistan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

More importantly for its economy, Turkmenistan also profits from the very rich bounty of oil and gas harvested around the Sea as do Kazakhstan to the north and Iran to the south. The border with Iran is only 50 kilometers from the capital city of Ashgabat in the Kopet Dagh Mountains.

Perhaps partly inspired by the natural white of the west, the leaders of Turkmenistan have built a capital in Ashgabat they proudly call the White City. The name itself means “city of devotion/love.” But, to us, it seemed more like a Hollywood backlot. Or Oz itself.

The surfaces of all the buildings are formed of white marble or other stone. During the day, gleaming brightly in the sun, one can barely distinguish one from another except for those few with unique stylistic features or gold trim.

This is especially true of the numberless blocks of apparently identical apartment buildings; to us, every street looked the same.

At night, however, like Las Vegas on steroids, commercial buildings and other structures vie for attention with flashing colors, light shows, or other glitzy displays.

Every car and bus is white, with very occasionally a creamy silver or gold. And not even dirty white: it’s an expensive violation to drive a dirty car in the city. And road police are plentiful on the main streets. Car washes, tucked away from view, proliferate on the edge of town so those returning, tainted with the dust of the desert, can hose down.

Plus, in a city that broils during the summer, no tinted glass or shades are allowed in the car so cameras can see within.

The men dress like accountants in the 1950s, narrow black tie and pants, plus a white shirt. The flora is allowed to be green and the flowers gold and red, etc. As well as the women, who wear dark colored robes, or chapan.

Outside of the searing summer season, the border mountains to the south form a backdrop to the surreal set design on the streets - shiny with green or aspiring to their own whiteness in the mists.

In addition to the color white, the other ever-present sight around town is the eight-pointed star of Oghuz Khan. It’s formed from two overlapping squares where one is rotated 45 degrees.

The symbol derives from Turkic Islamic art as a sign of abundance and peace. It adorns buildings, street fixtures, furniture – and even defines the overall shape of many structures or monuments.

The only other exception to the uniformity is the old part of Ashgabat, a small section that looks much like the large Soviet-era cities across Central Asia, with grand Stalinesque public buildings amid renovated sandstone structures, tree-lined streets and parks.

Unlike the clogged capitals of the other Central Asian countries, which have similar populations, Ashgabat has no traffic, automotive or pedestrian. The white cars, typically with just a driver, motor along at steady speeds on the six-lane boulevards as if in an AI simulation of a city. We saw empty roads and motorways more than we saw any kind of traffic backup at a light.

And the drivers were nearly all male, as young women cannot obtain driving licenses and complex rules govern rights for older women. People do take buses or taxis, but quickly disappear off the streets. The costly monorail metro has never even worked.

It’s all very, very eerie and sterile.

People can be found in the white shopping malls, with their white cars parked outside, or the open-air markets, but those never seem very crowded. The only gatherings we saw were celebrations of special occasions with hyper-patriotic performances by youth groups, reportedly by special invitation only. Even Ashgabat’s airport, in the form of a white soaring dove, spans a voluminous space with hardly any flights.

During the first president’s long reign (Saparmurat Niyazov) after the fall of the USSR, the strictures were often bizarre. Some were reactions against religious extremists. But many were based on personal predilections, such as whiteness which meant purity and good fortune to him. And recognition by the UN as formally neutral, never to interfere in other countries, was also important to him, perhaps to suggest others keep hands off Turkmenistan.

As for his rules…In a country the size of California, for example, no hospitals except in the capital city. Others included no beards on young men, no dogs, strict limitations on music listening, testing on Niyazov’s own book even for a driver’s license, and more. Happily, many of these rules, but not all, have eased. Our car played all kinds of Turkmen and western music, for example.

Across the country, internet access to foreign sites like Facebook or even Whatsapp is also tightly controlled – at least in theory. Insiders know the right VPNs to enable apps or sites. We were lucky to stay at our hotel when an international conference took place, so access was open. Once the conference ended, it was constrained again.

Why are things so different here? Since the first president, the leadership has tightly controlled the people and development, partly through such highly idiosyncratic rules. The tools of control seem to have served his successors, who splash their carbon-based energy wealth on grand, neo-classical government buildings, futuristic designs, and non-stop apartment construction.

For whom, we couldn’t tell. Rather, the grandiosity of this unique city seems intended mainly to show off wealth and shout importance. Large images of the current president adorn many facades across the city.

Even our hotel, one of the few that takes tourists, emulated Russian palaces with gold trim everywhere.

Though the city may be white, the only sensible method for currency exchange is the black market. You can use an ATM, bank, or credit card for money or purchases at the official rate of the moment, 3.5 TMT (manat) to 1 USD. The real black-market rate was 15 or 16 to 1 (19 to 1 for the Euro). In other words, a purchase of, say, local vodka at 75 manat could run you $22 by credit card or $5 in cash obtained by exchange.

Given the tight restrictions on foreign currency holdings in the country, the dollar and euro are prized. Even the only mobile service demands 30 dollars for a tourist’s SIM card. Only dollars. And, on entering the country, a visa plus mandatory covid test and fees run at least 125 USD…only payable in USD. However, you do receive about a dozen laboriously hand-written receipts for your payoffs. It took friends four hours to clear all the paperwork and rigamarole when entering via Ashgabat airport. We felt lucky to do it in just an hour or so at a land crossing.

So, it’s very hard to do business outside the country because of the abysmal official rate of exchange. All the more reason that the country’s economy depends so heavily on natural resources.

But tourism is growing, it seems. This is one of the five Stans on the typical route through Central Asia. Yet, because of the difficulties of coming here, most visitors for pleasure come in groups. You need a formal invitation before visiting, essentially a pre-registration from some agent who takes responsibility for your presence.

A few others like us take on the challenge independently, but typically work with an agency for arrangements, including guides and drivers. The passport check at the hotels took a long time, as the hotel needed to log us into the government’s system. However, we seemed free to move about as we wished, whether walking, shopping, or eating out.

Otherwise, there is just not that much of interest for a tourist. There is the old town, but it’s very similar to other capitals. There are many new monuments honoring the leaders or celebrating the country, not unlike the imperial columns and memorials in Dushanbe, and a very interesting, if overly large, historical museum. A tour of the city takes little time. And the hyperbolic grandeur dulls the senses.

We almost missed the most personal and emotional site in the city. Perhaps the guide felt it wasn’t grand enough. On a hillside overlooking much of the white city, a large plaza holds a set of memorials that began with the idea of honoring the 110,000 who died in the devastating earthquake of 1948.

We heard the story of the first president of independent Turkmenistan, who lost many family members in the quake including his mother, who saved him from being crushed. This sculpture is based on Turkic legends that describe earthquakes as the restless movement of the bull’s horns that hold the earth. The gold figure represents the President - and others who survived - in the protective arms of his mother.

The site also includes memorials for those who died in conflicts during the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

A Glimpse Outside

We wondered whether the other cities of Turkmenistan had also become white cities. We briefly passed through Dashoguz in the north near Uzbekistan. We had noticed much of it was white, but did not explore it enough.

Later, we stayed in Mary, about four hours drive east of Ashgabat, on the way to Merv, the ancient center of the region. Though not as uniform as Ashgabat, Mary’s buildings were still mostly white, with gold trimmings. The internet was constrained even with a VPN.

But some other tints had intruded on their structures. The late 19^th century bazaar buildings in sandstone and yellow brick have been left in place, as was a very red Eastern Orthodox church.

Many cars, especially older ones that wouldn’t go to Ashgabat, were dark-colored – and often quite dirty.

Most noticeably there was life: car traffic, people thronging the streets especially near the bazaars, and colorful clothing. Stalling in traffic felt like a relief.

For more posts from Turkmenistan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

He was the last in 400 years of rule by his predecessors, retaining control for 47 years, from 1864 to 1910. Still revered today as a wise and effective leader, this last Khan accepted integration into Russia in 1873 as a protectorate in order to preserve his city. But then he still ruled for another 37 years.

Poet, architect, leader – Feruz inherited and advanced the culture of Khorezm during his rule in Khiva, a fitting heir to its past glories.

Just a Bukhara had its origin legend about Job discovering water, so does Khiva. Shem, the son of the Noah of the flood, dreamed of a site where water would rise from underground and then found that place in Khiva. Around town, one can find the motif of an ark in tile.

The later imprint of Khorezm’s ancient leaders stands in the deserts just to the northwest. In a district known as Karakalpak, old brick and clay castles occupy a widespread area.

Known as the Fifty Fortresses (Elliq Qala), these include impressive remains dating back to the 4^th century BC, some of which had been restored into the Middle Ages. They were made of unfired clay so they eventually dissolved in the rain, even if not overcome by enemies.

We visited three in various stages of archeological excavation or preservation. At Ayaz Qala, imposing walls topped a sandy mountain and looked over a sister fort of a different time.

Old passageways and ramparts that had survived the years made for pleasurable exploring.

Among these, at the huge site of Kirkkiz Qala, we spent a lot of time in a treasure hunt among the countless shards of old ceramics still lying about.

Those were the Massaghete people (vs the Sogdians to the east), whose legendary queen Tomyris once defeated Persia’s Cyrus the Great. Khorezm remained different from the Uzbek cities to the east, more Turkic in character like Turkmenistan than the Persian connections with current Afghanistan and Iran.

Among the legacies of this time is the heritage of customs and rituals from Zoroastrianism. Around Khiva, you see the hourglass symbol for protection against harm, physical or otherworldly. It’s combination of masculine and feminine principles, with the connection for reproduction or birth. And it’s related to the representation of the Persian Faravahar, a protective angel.

Later, the Khorezm area shared in the Golden Age of Islam. In the 9^th century, a mathematician from here named Al-Khorezmi brought so-called Arabic numerals and algebra to the attention of the western world. The word Algorithm comes from his name.

Abu Al-Biruni, a polymath genius, worked in Khiva in the 11^th century. He wrote works on science and mathematics, as well as a renowned comparative history of religions. He was also an expert astronomer who affirmed that the world was round (500 years before Galileo). He even calculated its radius within 2% of modern measures.

By that time, the inner part of Khiva – for the ruler and his court - was encircled by brick walls. Those 10-meter walls (33 feet) and their four gates still stand, with crenellations added under the Khanate in the 17^th century. The rest of the city was also walled with 11 gates, but those have not survived.

We stayed in a lovely guesthouse within those inner walls, so the compact city was easy to wander day or night on foot.

On one day, we found a large number of tombs built into the walls near the southern gate and wondered why. These were intended to prevent attack from other Muslim forces who would not want to disturb the tombs in any way.

Most of Khiva’s structures, however, date from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, unlike the many earlier buildings of Bukhara and Samarkand, as Khiva’s Khans often wanted to redesign the city in their own manner.

That, along with the deal with the Russians, explains the uniform style and excellent preservation of the inner city. At its peak, the empire controlled the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea and numbered 800,000 in population.

Walking within, you feel you have stepped back in time some 150 years. If you look carefully at entrances, though, you find that many old buildings, including madrasahs, have been re-purposed as hotels or guesthouses like ours.

The funds for these projects came from the ongoing trade of the Silk Road throughout this period, a significant part of which was the slave trade in Russian and Persian captives that the Russians eventually stopped in 1873.

For example, the main madrasah complex, a huge walled structure across from the Khan’s palace, was built in 1876 for the love of Allah by the poet-scholar Khan to foster Islamic and secular learning. Construction projects like this and the work of translating much Persian literature to his Turkic language fit the cultural revival Feruz promoted.

Of course, he also wanted to put his own stamp on the city. The strange half-built minaret in the city center, Kalta Minor, was begun in 1851 but left unfinished by successor Khans, including Feruz – as, well, not theirs. There are several other large minarets in other sections of the old city, beautiful in themselves as they dominate the space around them. Yet the cut-off tower has become a more notable landmark than it would have been if completed.

By contrast, one of the oldest monuments here is the Djuma Mosque, a stunning space with over 100 carved wood columns. Built in the 10^th century, and rebuilt in the 18^th, it is reminiscent of the hypostyle 8^th century mosque at the Cordoba cathedral and wooden mosques of Turkey. It’s a treat to find the original columns within the forest.

And there is a unique space within Khiva dating from the 14^th century, though refashioned over time, which entombs and honors a holy man. The poet Pahlavon Mahmud, who became a 13^th century leather tradesman and famously strong wrestler, proved to be a powerful healer as well. In a steady flow, pilgrims come to his mausoleum and pray for healing. In the entryway, an imam reads the Qu’ran as devotees sit and tourists gawk. Then, in the tall but compact chamber that contains the tomb, pilgrims fill the gorgeous space with prayer.

Feruz’s 19^th century palace, facing the same plaza as the half-minaret, was a small walled city for the Khan, his entourage, and his harem. The interior rooms, like this throne room for reception of dignitaries, have been preserved in their lustrous beauty.

Similarly, the impossibly elaborate tilework and woodcarving of the porticos, where the Khan held court, manifested his wealth and power, as well as his aesthetic sense.

The other courtyards allowed for relaxation and contemplation. Behind the scenes, the servants operated out of their own distinct section of the palace.

The Khan’s wives and concubines enjoyed their separate area too, but a private passageway led from their rooms to the Khan’s bedroom.

They presumably inspired his love poetry as well.

Not to be outdone, the summer palace, now outside the city walls, also accommodated the royal court in grand style.

Though consistent with overall Khiva style, it presents a simpler, more contemporary look…with what seems to be a fancy hostel for the concubines.

So, Khiva today is largely a love letter from the Khans, particularly the poet Khan Feruz - a harmonious creation in brick and clay, rather than words, that visitors can still peruse.

Your love has burned into the heart and soul,
The darkness of disbelief has burned into religion and faith.

The other is the fading of your eyes,
With one glance, it has burned into the garden, the garden.

…

The love of your face, as bright as the moon,
In the sky, the love of the sky has burned into the garden.

How strange, when you see your face,
If it falls from the book of Feruz, it has burned into the garden of roses.

-- Feruz (Muhammad Rahim II)

For more posts from Uzbekistan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

As we learned in Samarkand, the myriad mosques and madrasas, however splendid, tend to blur together into one. And Wikipedia lists nearly two dozen monuments of historic significance here. Even though Bukhara became the capital of the Khanate after Samarkand in the 17^th century, how could it distinguish itself from our first Uzbekistan city?

For example, Bukhara’s Registan Square ensemble at the heart of the city, though lovely, seemed, well, just more of the same.

But Bukhara has its own distinctions.

Unlike Samarkand, the historic area is more separated from the new city, with its old buildings connected by pedestrian lanes and broad plazas as in the past. Though it suffered from destruction by the Soviet army in 1920, the Soviet government largely restored and rebuilt the historic center. You feel here that you stepped back through centuries. Old Khiva, we later learned, is even more immersive, completely separated from the new city by its massive walls.

As the capital, Bukhara was also where the rulers lived and ran the apparatus of government. So, it offers the massive Khan’s fortress and his engaging summer palace.

Lastly, special things stood out: other architectural styles, the still active trading centers or bazaars, the reflective pools once used for water supplies, and the mythic stories.

Other styles

Our first stop in the city caught our attention by its unprepossessing charm. The 9^th century Mausoleum of Ismail Samani predated most of Samarkand and was the resting place for the bones of three generations, marked by one stone.

The unadorned brickwork – no blue tiles or color enhancements as in Samarkand - showed mesmerizing geometric patterns and designs, both inside and outside the small structure.

Notice, for example, the diverse treatment of the arches over the equally varied brickwork beneath.

Later, we saw another example of stunning brickwork with no added decoration on the ancient facade at Maghoki Attari mosque, one of the few survivors of destruction by Genghis Khan.

Also unusual in a different style was a fairly recent 19^th century madrasa with four towers anchoring a relatively small building called Chor Minor. The unique decoration of each tower includes references to Buddhism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism as well as Islam.

Oddly, across the street, an old bazaar building displays thousands and thousands of knickknacks from the era of Soviet rule – all for sale by the enterprising family that collected these items.

Trading Centers and Caravansarei

Also notable were the many multi-domed buildings in the old city. We thought they were baths or religious centers, but they turned out to be old bazaar buildings with cavernous interiors.

In the past, each one offered a different kind of goods (textiles, precious metals, spices, wood products, etc.). Bukhara was the regional mecca for merchants traveling by camel along the Silk Road, just like it became an important learning center filled with madrasas. The trading centers still hawk goods, but now they’re aimed mainly at tourists who arrive without camels.

Around town, you could still see the old caravanserai – the hostels that accommodated the visiting merchants and stabled their camels, providing food and entertainment as well. Many had become modern hotels or restaurants. We ate a very good meal at one of these, centered around an attractive courtyard, as was the norm.

Water’s ways

Unlike Samarkand, Bukhara has retained several of its ancient pools for storing water, though most were removed for health reasons by the Soviets in the 20^th century. The largest, with fountains now gleefully shooting water in the middle, is surrounded with outdoor eateries and gnarled trees. Branching out from it are several broad walkways, plazas, and the narrower streets of old neighborhoods.

Jewish Quarter

Among these neighborhoods are lanes that defined the old Jewish Quarter. Jews and Christians were welcome in the Muslim empires of Central Asia because they shared the Abrahamic religious heritage.

Several synagogues survived till current times, but we couldn’t find one open to visit. Instead, we toured a family house dating from the 1700s, still welcoming people as a small hotel. The owners try to give visitors a feel for the lifestyle of the ancient Jewish community through events and the preservation of several rooms from the late 1800s. They proudly talk about a visit from one grateful, tearful man who had grown up in the building.

It’s Good to be the Khan

Much restored after the Soviet destruction and displacement of the Khanate, the Khan’s Palace today gives a glimpse of the splendor of his court. The impressive walls of the Ark, as the Palace Fort is known, rise atop a hill that is not natural, but the accumulation of ruined forts of the past.

Inside the walls, open-air plazas once were the scenes of royal functions and ceremonies. In the shade under the ornate porticoes sat the Khan.

Former rooms used by the Khan and his entourage now act as a museum, narrating royal history or showing off the old décor. It’s evident that the palace was much more extensive in the past, as the meager remains of the rest of the palace dot the large archeological site behind the restored sections.

The khans also had their own place to pray, and to be installed as rulers. This is the 1718 Boloi Haluz mosque near the bazaar, built soon after the capital moved here. It’s known as the 40-column mosque though its beautifully decorated portico only contains 20 carved wood columns.

The doubling is due to the second major water pool remaining in the city. At the far side of the pool, the reflection mirrors those 20 columns.

Six kilometers northeast from the Ark sprawls the Khan’s summer palace, Sitori Mhoki Khosa. It’s preserved in late 19^th century style when the last Khan occupied it with his mother (at her own large home), family, and concubines.

Reportedly the Khan visited his mother every morning to seek advice as she stood on her upper story perch.

According to the tale of its siting, the architect identified the coolest site for the summer palace by placing four dead chickens in various locations. He then built where one chicken did not rot. This proved not such a good investment: the Russians came just seven years after construction and drove the Khan out.

Here you can still view the sumptuous furnishings used by the royals as well as luscious examples of suzani, the hand-embroidered folk art of the Uzbeks and other Asian peoples for wall coverings, tablecloths, etc. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the detailed texture in the flowers, etc.

The holy men

The importance of Bukhara and its investment in madrasas for learning or study attracted holy men. One of these, Bahouddin Nakshband, founded a Sufi order here and lived in what developed into a large complex for pilgrims to visit.

He taught moral principles such as in his most famous recommendation for action in the world, that Allah is in the heart and hands are in the work. Outside, we gave alms to several women gathered at the site.

Inside, at one portico, dozens of people prayed with a local imam.

Throughout the complex, beautiful wooden ceilings adorned the buildings.

Stories

The different types of buildings and plazas, the preserved housing on narrow lanes, the honored wise men, and the royal centers – all gave us much new to see in Bukhara. And then there were the other stories.

An origin legend for Bukhara recounts how, in a moment when Job was not so beset with troubles, an angel rewarded him for his continuing faith by making healing waters spring from the spot on which he stood.

Since the 14^th century, a mausoleum called Chasma Ayub (or Job), first built by the famous Timur (see article on Samarkand), marks the spot. The spring inside still spurts water that pilgrims – and visitors like us - drink for its supposed powers. Nearby several hammams, or baths, use these local waters to bathe and scour their patrons.

Another good story tells of the creation of the towering minaret that is the most outstanding feature of Bukhara’s Registan Square (topping off at about 45 meters or 150 feet). Note the image at the start of this article.

It is said that the architect laid the foundation for the tower and then disappeared for two years. That action enraged the ruler who was paying for the tower. When the builder returned to the city, the Khan prepared to execute him for his insolence. But he explained that he left so that the base could firmly settle into the porous ground. Then it could support such a large tower. He was allowed to prove the point by completing the tower. The Khan likely understood the reasoning as all over town one can see a salty, white coating on the bases of so many buildings, a result of the water table surfacing.

The great minaret served several functions: the most evident one is that the imam calls worshippers to prayer five times a day. A second was as a lighthouse for caravans, to guide them to the city by day or, when lit, by night. That was also the rationale for the huge turquoise domes in these cities; they gleamed in the sun as far as a day’s walk from the trading center.

A third purpose was punishment. Malefactors were tossed off the top. One popular story of star-crossed lovers tells of a man who fell in love with one of the Khan’s concubines and tried to remove her from the harem. He was dropped from the tower top; she was buried alive in a nearby pit.

A kinder, gentler subject of folk tales and sayings across Muslim countries is a kind of wise fool known as Nasruddin Hodja. “Why are you riding backwards?” he was once asked. “My donkey is heading in the wrong direction,” he responded, “and I want to make sure I reach my destination.” Or when asked the right way to attend a funeral procession, he said, “It doesn’t matter how you go, as long as you don’t go in the coffin.” Here he is celebrated in another leafy plaza by a bronze sculpture that attracts photo takers and metal rubbers. The smiling man rides his mule with a hand on his heart and the other in a kind of blessing.

He rides just outside the Nodir Devonbegi mosque, a more typical example of 17th century tiled decoration, familiar to us from Samarkand. Unusually, fantasy creatures fly atop the facade.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

In the 10th century, four brothers (or Chor Bakr), who were descendants of Mohammed, settled just outside Bukhara and attracted devotees to their teachings. By the 16^th century, the Khans built mausoleums and madrasas to honor them.

Dedicated followers lived there until death and were buried in their homes or brick repositories. Eventually all had died, turning the city of attractive brick homes and mausoleums into a necropolis, a city of the dead. Few visitors come to hear their story.

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The Samarkand we see today, however, largely began at the end of the 14^th century with Timur Lenge, or Tamerlane.

The city had flourished during the Islamic Renaissance, with extensive trade between east and west along the silk road. One of the most magnificent proofs of this was a wall painting of the 7th and 8th centuries found in Samarkand amid the ruins of the ancient royal palace of Afrosiab. The mural occupied four walls of a hall that was 11 meters (36 feet) square.

Along with motifs from across Asia, visitors from various countries - Korea, for example - are represented in an audience with the king. And an international cast stars in the other imagery.

Locals often refer to the links between global regions as the Paper Road, not just the Silk Road. Samarkand itself disrupted the Chinese monopoly on paper making, somehow stealing the technology and exporting paper to Europe.

The same mulberry trees whose leaves silkworms like to eat are ideal for the fibers to make paper. That art is still practiced here.

Then Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde in the 13^th century destroyed almost all of it.

But, in the late 14th century, Timur emerged from the Turkic-Mongol people in current Uzbekistan. His name meant Timur the Lame because of a wound he received in cattle raids when he was young. He was a brilliant and brutal military strategist who overcame numerous challenges – and ruled the extensive Timurid Empire for 35 years.

Everything he built was grand in scale, like his Bibi Khanym mosque (named for Timur’s wife), which was once among the largest in the world. Restored in part after collapsing from a late-19th century earthquake, it still looms over the landscape.

He became a patron of the arts as well and chose to build his capital city in Samarkand. Only a few structures remain at his palace at Shahrisabz nearby, but the scale of his ambition is evident.

Timur was set to be buried at his palace, but winter storms prevented his followers from reaching Shahrisabz. So he was buried instead at Gur-i Amir Mausoleum, which he had built for his religious teacher.

Structures like this set the model of grandeur for his heirs, most notably his grandson, Ulug Begh, who is buried next to Timur.

During his rule in the 15^th century, Ulug Begh built a prominent educational institution or madrasa in Samarkand, a building that survives today in Registan Square. This most famous location in Samarkand now includes three madrasas in a glorious ensemble. Ulug Begh’s original is on the left; the other two were built in the 17th century by later rulers.

Ulug Begh was also an expert astronomer and mathematician, so he attracted scientists, poets, and other learned people to Samarkand.

He even constructed a huge observatory, a massive sextant in effect, with a radius of 36 meters (nearly 120 feet). The observatory building was four stories tall, but only the underground section has survived.

The long heritage of the scientific work of this period is well recognized among scholars, revered in Uzbekistan, but so little known by others.

Successors to these rulers, especially in the 17^th century, added mosques and madrasas that rivalled earlier structures. And then there are the tombs.

One’s first vision of Samarkand’s magnificence is the one that sticks with you. For us, that was the complex of mausoleums at Shah-i-Zinda, with twenty structures spanning 800 years, mainly from the Timurid period of the 14th and 15th.

Shah-i-Zinda doesn’t look like much from the entryway, a set of tall stairs that challenges many of the visitors, including many who come to pray here. But, once in the complex, people spend a long time.

The facade of each one is swathed in exquisite tilework; within, stunning interiors have been restored in dazzling fashion.

After the 17th century, Bukhara gained power over the region, building up its own learning and religious institutions and limiting investment in Samarkand until the arrival of the Russians in the mid-19^th century.

In the next few decades, the Russian archaeologists decided to repair the crumbling buildings and build a few imitations. Other fixes have kept these structures resplendent. As a result, what we see now is often a mashup of the original and the imagined.

But, face to face with these buildings today, one can ignore the uncertainties of authenticity. We can but gape in awe at the scale of the ambitions and the beauty of the result. And thank Timur the Lame for his vision.

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As expected, they lay in valleys - the 7% of the country that is not high mountain terrain. This is the land of the Sogdian rulers from the 5^th century to the Arab invasion of the 8^th century. Panjakent was the city-state center of the Sogdian tribes here. It was linked along the Silk Road to trading centers like Khujand in the nearby northern chunk of Tajikistan.

During that first invasion and then with the onslaught of the Golden Horde under the Mongolian Khans, the city was destroyed by fire, leaving mainly the clay foundations to be discovered by archeologists.

Such burnt wood remnants present a certain irony. The people who lived here before the spread of Islam held Zoroastrian beliefs centered around worship of fire. As an attribute of the sun, it was the most important of the four basic elements of life: fire, water, air, earth. All their temples featured central hearths, as did the upscale homes. Their creed was simple: good thoughts; good words; good deeds. But many of the regional superstitions of today, such the ways of warding off the evil eye or other perils, derive from their beliefs.

Fired clay, or brick, was a fundamental building material for them, in a region of very hot summers and cold winters. Structures built with these not only endure, but they naturally insulate from the heat outside. Before refrigeration, clay pots were used to keep things cold, for example. Plus, during cold weather, clay walls retain the heat from a hearth inside.

The city-state of Panjakent has been excavated enough over the last 80 years to reveal the lifestyle and culture..

Clay caskets were used to inter the bones of the dead after the bodies were left on hillsides to be scavenged by animals. The caskets were often placed below the doorway of the clay homes.

In the Dushanbe post, we also showed the kind of art that decorated the ceremonial halls of Panjakent: dramatic, colorful frescoes now on display at Dushanbe’s Museum of Antiquities – or at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg where the Russians moved so many of them.

In Khujand and Panjakent, we saw mostly copies, but they still impressed us. Plus, they vividly demonstrate the linkages forged along the Silk Road, with elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism.

We also wrote of the national revival of pride in old empires like these, including the ones that conquered the region. Alexander the Great battled through here during his years of conquest, even building a great castle in Nurata, just over the border near Bukhara. He set Khujand as the outer limit of his regime, a defensive barrier against the Scythians of the Caucasus.

In the museum at Khujand he is lionized with a roomful of modern mosaics about his life, from birth thru conquest to death.

Featured in the mosaics is his marriage, because a local girl, Roxhana, captured his heart – a frequently noted event here.

Luckily, yet another old culture was discovered at a site near Panjakent, a proto-urban community from 5500 years ago that is one of the earliest settlements ever discovered. It’s known as Sarazm, “where the land begins.” This was a valley that enticed a nomadic people to work together, cultivating crops and grazing their cattle, one that connected them via traders to the east and west, north and south – a proto-version of the later Silk Road.

The discovery was lucky, we learned, because it was accidental. A local farmer unearthed the copper head of a digging tool. He showed it to a Russian archeologist who immediately recognized its age and importance, then began excavations here. Now Sarazm is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

To us, the site of the proto-community was much more extensive and interesting than the one we discovered in Turkey at Catalhoyuk.

Here, most of the town was also constructed of clay. At the digs, enough of the foundations have remained to understand the layout and lifestyle, including the hearths that served for their fire worship.

The unearthing of the Sarazm Princess and other remains from that time included many items of everyday use and precious jewelry of the period.

Clearly, it suits the modern leaders of the country to hail this early record of city life. A large gate, re-creations of the original buildings, a huge museum - all celebrate what they’ve designated as Sarazm 5500. “We were the first!” they can boast.

In more modern times, this area was part of the Bukhara Khanate before the Soviets split up the “republics” of the USSR to suit their needs, rather than historical or ethnic affiliations. The old trading center of Khujand is now the largest Tajik town in the northwest. After the Arabic invasion, Khujand became a center of learning, home to celebrated poet Khujandi in the 14^th century among other notable scientists and writers.

The style of its heavily restored fortress demonstrates in brick and stone its relationship to Bukhara, which ruled this part of Tajikistan by the 17^th century, as do various mausoleums and religious buildings.

The contemporary city preserves the usual 20^th century Soviet add-ons: broad parks (though with a creaky Chinese cable car crossing the river), grand public buildings, etc

Of course, no one worships fire anymore; it is not a part of Islam. But there is much warmth shared.

Here, as elsewhere in the country, we were often hailed by children and warmly greeted with huge smiles from the older men and women. We had already seen how hitchhiking is a way of life in Tajikistan, particularly in the mountains, to supplement the many minivan buses rumbling about. Picking people up is expected as a normal courtesy, a sign to us of their communal warmth, regularly extended to guests.

We experienced many other small instances of this warmth. Everyone can taste the bulk wares on display at the bazaar markets; it’s expected. When we bought something, though, we nearly always engaged in a long conversation about who we were and any connections that the stallkeepers shared. Plus some extra from the stall – basil, an extra measure of an item, etc.

As we left Tajikistan via its land border with Uzbekistan, we hauled our bags about a kilometer to clock out of the country and clock into Uzbekistan. We said goodbye to our helpful guide and driver, who kept us safe on all those rough mountain roads.

But the most heartwarming example of local warmth was on our arrival by plane into Dushanbe, after a grueling pair of flights crossing two borders twice within 12 hours (a re-jig because the direct flight was cancelled). The long, confusing passport control line looked to be at least an hour wait, as only a few agents were working. A dozen people were in front of us when one proposed that we go ahead. We demurred, but they all insisted. None of them knew each other, but all agreed that we – clearly not local – should go ahead: we were their guests.

The fire still burns in Tajik hearts.

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As usual, the Soviets put grand imperial buildings in Stalin-esque, approved style around the city along with the usual wide boulevard and broad parks. These parks remain grand and spacious, pleasingly bedecked with flowers in myriad colors.

Today, however, much of that Soviet style is being transformed to modernize the city, from renovation to removal.

One legacy, alas, shared with other major cities of Central Asia, has not been upgraded: the smoggy air from coal-burning, road-clogging traffic with many old cars, and industry. It shrouds the city, coats the lungs, and obscures the snow-capped mountains that comprise 93% of the terrain in the country.

In place of the Soviet grandeur, Tajikistan’s long-time ruler, Emomali Rahmon seems to aspire to a new imperial age under his watchful leadership. His Lenin-esque stance and benign face appear everywhere on posters throughout the country.

Unsurprisingly, his regime espouses the grandeur of the past. The museums and city statuary memorialize three historical periods when Tajik predecessors commanded the territory. The first goes back 3000 years to the greatness of Cyrus and the Persian Empire as well as Alexander the Great who conquered this region later, marrying a Tajik princess named Roxhana.

The second period is the Sogdian from about the 5^th to the 8^th century when a group of affiliated tribes controlled this area from Panajakent in western Tajikistan. Two kinds of artifacts have survived since then.

First, the charred remnants of statuary and buildings from the torching of their cities.

Second, magnificent frescoes on display at the Antiquities Museum in Dushanbe and Panjakent itself.

During this period, and before the spread of Islam, Buddhism still flourished in Central Asia, with great monasteries like Ajina-Tepa in southern Tajikistan. Though that monastery was mostly destroyed, its treasure, the largest sleeping Buddha statue of Central Asia (12 meters or over 40 feet long), is honored by its restoration in the Antiquities Museum and a recreation of the monastery itself in the National Museum.

The third imperial age was the Somonid period, after Islam spread to Central Asia, from the 9^th century to the onslaught of Genghis Khan around 1200 AD. Its leader Somoni is celebrated by a huge statue and arch in Dusti Square, erected on the 1000^th anniversary of his rule in 1999. And by the name for money, somoni or som – and one of Uzbekistan’s airlines.

This was the Golden Age in Tajik history, one shared with the modern-day countries of neighboring Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. This period after Islam spread through Central Asia fostered several renowned thinkers. Abu Sinu is truly the father of modern medicine. He purportedly dared to violate strictures against dissecting a human body in order to discover what killed a beloved student of his. He found a large kidney stone was the cause and, by accident, discovered a plant that dissolved the stone. Abu Sinu continued his study of anatomy and ailments, writing revelatory manuals on human ills that influenced medical science for centuries. His name is still recalled in the end of the word “medicine.”

And another key figure was Al-Khwarizmi, the 9^th century mathematician and astronomer, who developed the basics of algebra. He is honored in the use of the word “algorithm.”

The Tajik native son, Rudaki, was a 10^th century poet who grew up near Panjakent in the west. He was the first, it seems, to write in the modern Persian language, Farsi, which is closely related to Tajik. Statues and poetic verses of Rudaki are everywhere in Dushanbe, most notably in his eponymous park near Dusti Square.

Here is a sample of his writing from Shahid’s Caravan on the subject of life’s brevity:

Shahid’s caravan left before ours.
Believe me, ours will also leave.
Count the eyes, there is one pair less,
Measure the wisdom, thousands less.
Reap all that enriches your soul
Before death comes to bind your legs.

Though Tajikistan has none of the resource riches of neighboring Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, one can see in central Dushanbe how much its leaders want to impress with its own grandeur, taking its cue from the past eras.

From Rudaki Park, you look in one direction and see a golden tower celebrating the nation. Or a triumphal arch. Or the second tallest flagpole in the world (165 meters or just under 600 feet), loser of a rivalry with North Korea for the dubious honor of tallest flagpole. The flag itself weighs over 400 kilograms (1000 pounds).

A complex of three new monumental buildings for governmental use now dominates one of the main central boulevards.

A behemoth of a National Library has just opened on Dusti Square, securing its six million or so books in a kind of fortress.

Atop its endless entry staircase an artist painted a complex fresco that features noteworthy Tajiks and cultural highpoints, starting from the empires and ancient cultural heroes on top to more recent figures below.

The National Museum close by is a huge modern take on neo-classical architecture, but with a leaning glass tower inserted in its center.

The Museum anchors another large plaza featuring a statue of Rudaki. Across the plaza, an equally monumental public building nears completion.

Nearby looms a massive dark granite building called the Palace. When we headed there, we thought we were going to the regal home of some khan of the past or tech mogul. Instead we found a chintzy three-level sculpture at its center of the nearby mountains and their animals, a multi-screen cinema, a large restaurant, and vast halls being used for weddings and graduation celebrations.

These celebrants wisely spilled out the back of the palace to enjoy themselves in the outdoor cupolas at the edge of a huge artificial lake dotted with paddle boats.

Fittingly, the newest mosque in town is also immense, the largest in Central Asia. Just two years old and funded by Qatar, the Central Cathedral Mosque seems to rival the sizable mosques of the Middle East, with capacity for 125,000 in prayer.

A short ride outside the city rises another reminder of the grand past at Hisar. The Hisar fortress began, it is said, in the time of old Cyrus but was destroyed 21 times over the years. The grand gate, with its bulky round towers, and the walls scaling the hillside have been extensively restored to look like their 15^th century incarnations, clearly reflecting Bukharan monumental style.

The impressive structure, surrounded by the clay remains of ruined fortifications, attracts residents of Dushanbe for wandering, partying, picnicking, and even horseback riding (at which even the young seem to excel as they galloped about). We too enjoyed the atmosphere, as well as the challenging climb up to the top and then down the steep stairs without a guardrail.

We happened to go on some festival day, when many people dressed up fashionably. While there, we were invited to join a large family picnicking on the grassy mounds that remain of the old forts. Later, a teacher leading a large group of students around the site stopped us so his students could proudly and excitedly talk with us in English – well, mostly basic greetings in English.

The same thing happened while we toured the National Museum, but with a more controlling teacher. He picked a couple of students to show off, though most were eager to do so. One did the usual greeting routine. Another started rattling off the 400 words in English that he knew, from A to Z. His patter was so fast we couldn’t catch any of the words, though we managed to stop him around C or D with a lot of praise and applause from the class. Sadly, the teacher did not give any of the girls a chance. As we parted, we pulled them aside and gave them the opportunity with our encouragement.

Back at the fort, it wasn’t clear how much of their historic past the Tajiks cared about while enjoying themselves in the fine weather. The students were evidently visiting to learn more about it. Yet, even for their elders and despite the festive distractions, the stalwart fort likely imprinted a bit of its own long history - and that of the Tajik people - on all who came.

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In this part, we share the main mountain experience that visitors to the capital cities undertake, the Seven Lakes of the Shing River gorge. Most visitors take a tour that lasts up to 10 hours and crosses the Uzbek-Tajik border twice out of Samarkand. The full vans somehow make it through the narrow, steep, rock-strewn trails near Panjakent in northwest Tajikistan. (See part 1 for more about driving challenges here). And they make the obligatory stops for photos at each of the lakes.

We continued on from other parts of the Fann Mountains and stayed in a nice guesthouse between lakes 4 and 5. In that way, we could dawdle at the most appealing of the lakes and do some walking as well, especially to lake 7, where cars don’t normally reach.

That guesthouse was one where we could cook our own food, rather than the standard fare for such odd people like us who are vegetarians. It was configured somewhat like a hostel, with a common dining area, individual bedrooms, and a shared double bath. The best part was that we could just sit for a relaxed hour at the edge of a lovely falls streaming past the home. Even when the lakes aren’t so full, there is a lot of water flowing here, including the natural springs that fed our falls.

The Seven Lakes are like a string of jewels. Each is linked to the outflow of the next higher one and spills into the lower. Some are just 50 meters higher; others, hundreds of meters. From 1 to 7, you climb over 750 meters in altitude (2500 feet), finishing at 2400 meters above sea level. The connecting roads span 15 kilometers (about 10 miles), ranging from easy to frightening even in dry conditions.

One of them, number 4, is quite recent, formed by a landslide that blocked the connection to number 3.

The lakes themselves vary greatly in size and shape. Their color starts from a turquoise base, mixing in purples and blues and yellows depending on the mineral content of their encircling hills, as well as the shifting light of day.

So, enjoy this short tour of the lakes just in case you don’t dare take the van from Samarkand on these gritty roads.

In early spring, we were surprised to find, the lakes are not full. It’s only in July and August that the melting snows of the mountains raise the level of Lake 7 at least 3-4 meters (10 to 15 feet). The outflow of Lake 7 was hardly detectable when we saw it. The rising water then starts the cascading increase of levels in the lower lakes.

Despite the steady flow of vans and gawkers, as well as water, it’s still fun to count the lakes and watch the shifting colors in each. And even more fun to hang around a while. On the morning we left, before the day trippers could arrive, we had the lakes to ourselves.

…and especially the glory of lake 4 in the morning light.

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Though mountains loom nearby the capital, Dushanbe, you would get the wrong impression from its relative flatness. To feel the country, you need to travel into the upper reaches.

There you find the good, the surprisingly pleasant guesthouses whose friendly hosts make you feel an honored guest. The bad, the back roads that ascend the mountains, ranging from rough to scary treacherous. These indeed can be ugly when the rains make mud of the dirt tracks. But, otherwise, the landscape, the hiking options, and the settings of the villages are all extraordinarily beautiful.

We visited four different sections of northern Tajikistan in its Fann Mountains. In part 1 of this post, we show the appeal and variety of three locales. In part 2, we share the famous Seven Lakes district near historic Panjakent.

The Good: Guesthouses

We were a bit worried about staying in so many backcountry guesthouses. We’ve roughed it over the years, but we were scheduled for about a week of village accommodations. What would they be like?

One was a sanatorium, renowned for its healing spring waters. Locals flock to it in the season to take any of a myriad of treatments to refresh themselves and restore health.

While we were there, it seemed most of the visitors preferred the large meals to the salutary treatments. The rooms were outfitted elaborately with old style heavy furniture. We even had a separate closed patio for lounging, with a low table surrounded by rugs and pillows, set up in traditional Ottoman style.

Another guesthouse, at remote Artuch Base, was an older version of the same setup, though with two bedrooms. The rougher conditions were fine for a night. Most visitors are pleased to have anything like this, as they are preparing for lengthy hikes in the vicinity.

The rest of the guesthouses were surprisingly comfortable and roomy, with private bathrooms and hot showers. They were furnished simply, but newly renovated. The views outside the windows or around the properties were extraordinary. Despite the very cold weather at night, we were comfortable. Each provided heaters in the rooms strong enough to keep things warm, and heavy comforters on the beds to burrow into.

Our gracious hosts at these guesthouses were willing to help in any way. Though we could barely communicate except with Translate, one even helped us deal with a local drunk who wouldn’t leave us alone.

Each offered three meals per day for the guests, but there is no menu. The norm is a basic, yet filling, offering of meat stew with over-cooked potato, cabbage, and carrots; soup often with canned vegetables; fresh salad of cucumbers and tomatoes; local white bread and delicious wild cherry jam (pits included); plus our favorite, chaka, the local form of labneh/strained yogurt.

We had already discovered it was tough to be a vegetarian in Tajikistan, where beef and chicken define what a meal means. Happily, several of the guesthouses let us use their kitchens to cook. We made a few meals with tofu we had found in the Dushanbe market, along with lentils, fresh vegetables, etc. that we had bought. At Artuch, we were given a corner of the stove to work with and provided entertainment for the main cook, a woman who was busily making the meat stew for other guests. In another, the ebullient manager (and chief cook) of the guesthouse acted as sous-chef while we prepared the meal in her small kitchen.

The Bad: Dirt Roads

We have driven a lot of bad roads in our day (driving in parts of Costa Rica or across Patagonia in Chile…rutted, bumpy, narrow, muddy, and more). We even biked along the sodden track of Death Road in Peru, with its steep cliffs alongside.

But here we were so glad to have experienced drivers to take us to the beautiful locations of the guesthouses.

The routes present tough roads and driving conditions, with many sections that would induce prayer even if you’re not religious. There aren’t even guardrails on the paved roads. The best of the dirt roads are just rutted and steep; the worst pass below landslide-prone rock faces, just a hair from steep drop-offs.

Add in a bit of rain and you’re wrangling muddy, slippery parts.

We were stopped on the last climb at Artuch base by a truck stuck athwart the road after sliding off track. In another place, a van had swerved into a ditch, thankfully on the uphill side of the road.

In short, you need an experienced driver for trips here. All the more surprising perhaps are the many vehicles we encountered, including local minivan buses transporting villagers back and forth to towns.

So, just for fun, here’s a short video of just one section of road in the mountains (at the speed we were going).

On arriving at Lake Iskander, after a typical hair-raising ride, we found yet more (yak) hair in our path.

And then there are the trucks. In many of these locations, up to 100 kilometers deep into the mountains, Chinese companies are mining for gold and other minerals.

In hauling out their loads, the trucks grind up the road even in flatter sections. The roads that the companies “improved” have opened up better access to parts of the backcountry. Also, they added high-voltage electric lines for their use and for the villagers.

But their promise to make better roads, turning dirt routes into asphalt, hasn’t yet been fulfilled.

On the plus side, we were amazed to find internet or some level of mobile service in most of these guesthouses. Some places use satellite connections or mountain-top repeaters. And we think access has improved due to the installation of those electrical lines deep into the mountains.

The Beautiful: Landscape of the Fann Mountains

There is an obvious reason that trekkers come to locations like these for weeks at a time to cross the trails and passes of the mountains. There are now many companies that can help supply guides, as well as donkeys which carry packs up and down the trails.

In every location, we did day hikes of various lengths at altitudes ranging from 1800 to 2400 meters (about 6000 to 8000 feet).

One hike began at Iskander-Kul (Lake Alexander), named for Alexander the Great, who not only spent much time rampaging through the region, but found his wife Roxhana among the locals.

That hike brought us along an innocuous rushing stream to the sudden drop-off of the Niagara Falls of Tajikistan, Konchoch.

At Artuch Base, we did a muddy ascent up 300 meters (1000 feet) in altitude through trails made more slippery with cow dung and more challenging with a final traverse across a rock-strewn hillside, like the debris on the left in this photo.

It was not exactly pleasant, with the threat of rain and the approach of evening. Nor was the lake at the top that interesting. But we did feel accomplished at the end.

Artuch, though, is more typically a launch point for long-distance hikers. A pair of Belgians, whose transport stuck for a while on the rough road to the place, were preparing for a week-long hike, as were a French group. Some Russians didn’t even use the cabins. They had set up two tents on the broad lawn, while preparing to hike from here.

At Saritoq, a more gradual 10-kilometer hike took us into a broad valley where the green meadow offset the grey and snow-topped mountains.

The biggest excitement, however, was the avalanche overhead on a rock face.

The Ugly: the Future?

At times, as we bumped and screamed at the roads to these enchanting mountain locations, we wished the Chinese companies would start improving the roads. Or that the government would make it easier for the increasing tourist interest in visiting these beautiful, but hard-to-reach, places

Yet, with the roads, as we saw in more accessible parts of Tajikistan, will come the ugly. Inevitably, the flocks of tourists will induce construction of grand hotels, rather than guesthouses, or tourist restaurants, rather than home kitchens. The beauty of the unspoiled natural landscape will inevitably diminish.

For more posts from Tajikistan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

Bishkek was the first real city in the country, created from scratch by the Russian Empire when the people were largely nomadic and then built up during the Soviet era. Even compared to other Central Asian cities from that time, it is very green, with tree-lined boulevards and broad urban parkland. Much of the central city felt like a leafy university campus.

Yet, as we saw in Karakol, new housing has begun to invade these parks – most notably the extensive botanical gardens – to accommodate the rapid growth in the city. And we saw many century-old trees in other areas removed for some kind of modernization of the park space.

One sees construction everywhere - hundreds of new apartment buildings sprouting on the outskirts of the city and, even near the center of Bishkek, high-end apartment buildings replace older structures. For all that, toward the outskirts of town and in the suburbs, it was comforting to see large and small single-family homes on quiet side streets.

For the tradition of large families with lots of young children continues, with a birth rate of around 2.7 – not as high as Tajikistan next door at over 3.0, but still a lot. Perhaps this made much more sense when the Kyrgyz were nomadic with poorer healthcare, before the Soviet era.

“This is what my parents used when I was a baby,” our guide said, when we found cribs like this still available in the Bishkek bazaar for the burgeoning young. To keep things dry, the little stick is taped on to channel urine from the baby into the hole: the one on the left for boys, the one on the right for girls.

It takes a while for cultural norms like this to change.

Take bride kidnappings, for example. A young man in the past would fancy some young woman, kidnap her to his family home with the help of friends, wed her, and then rape her to consummate the marriage. This was a practice accepted by most, except often the young woman. Now outlawed officially, the kidnappings have changed into a way of avoiding the punishingly expensive wedding feasts for hundreds of guests, as traditionally demanded of bridegrooms. One person we met helped a friend “kidnap” a willing woman for just that reason, in a culture where eloping is not quite yet an option.

Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz have had to adjust to many abrupt changes in the last hundred years or so. As nomads, nearly the entire population lived in yurts. Like tents, yurts were easily disassembled, packed up, and then rebuilt in another location. The flag reflects this history, with a central circle mimicking the crossed poles at the topmost part of the yurt. Radiating from the circle are 40 points, representing the 40 historical tribes of the Kyrgyz.

The Soviets urbanized the population, forcing people into factory work and agriculture. Once the USSR collapsed, however, the factories closed, withdrawn to the new Russia. Ethnic and political conflicts hampered the country’s efforts at building a democratic republic, and limited its economic growth.

Without the oil resources of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the economy here still struggles. A large part of the male population works in Russia and elsewhere to support themselves and their family. Another cultural tradition helps in this respect. The youngest son stays with his parents at their home until they die, freeing the elder sons and daughters to go elsewhere.

Money from abroad is the second mainstay of the economy. The top industry is mining, which China eagerly invests in. And the third, a growing one, is tourism.

The wealth gap is evident in Bishkek, where the poor and the posh mingle. Stiletto heels, white overcoats, and stylish outfits abound even when women wear robes and head coverings. Elegant coffee shops offering French pastries have found a ready market. But we also saw more beggars here than in all of oil-rich Kazakhstan.

All are attracted by the potential for riches with the not-so-new game in town, the lotto.

Still, the average person in Bishkek (and tourists) can replenish electrolytes on the street with various, low-priced traditional concoctions. The “Shoro Aunties” sit on nearly every corner of the central town. Nancy loves Tan (or Ayran), a yogurt-like drink hard to find in Europe, so she tried a variant with barley.

We both skipped the dangerously potent mare’s milk at the big open market, though we could have bought horsemeat sausages (if we weren’t vegetarian). Horses are still a vital part of the culture, with the best costing much money and, upon death, turned into food. They are still used for herding, as well as a kind of polo/soccer competition on horseback, using a 40-kg dead goat instead of a ball.

And, at every meal, the Kyrgyz eat this traditional ornate bread (20 – 30 cents) of Russian heritage. Tandyr nan, stamped with a mold and baked in a tandoori-style oven, tastes like a large bagel.

Like us, Bishkek locals love their large markets, or bazaars, though formal supermarkets continue to change buying behaviors. Dozens of different rices, huge arrays of fresh and dried fruits, and on and on – all make for a cornucopia of options.

Despite independence, the Soviet era persists in several ways. The old imperial and neo-classical Soviet buildings have been repurposed for local and national government use (city hall, ministries of this and that, etc.) but also as arts centers.

Unlike in many other former Soviet cities, statues of Lenin and emblems with Soviet stars are still plentiful. There is even a statue of Marx and Engels in earnest discussion.

The Kyrgyz continue to follow Russia’s lead as well by celebrating their artists, architects, writers, and musicians. Numerous arts halls and training centers are scattered throughout the central city, named for the most notable of these cultural heroes. The National Museum – in a Soviet-era building - honors the history of Kyrgyzstan’s tribes, nomadic culture, and evolution as a country.

Because of their nomadic past, however, there are few monuments in the country for the Kyrgyz to celebrate. One such is Burana, a World Heritage site about 80 kilometers drive from Bishkek through magnificent mountain landscapes.

This was the prosperous imperial city of Balasgun, home for some of the Sogdian group of peoples from the 9^th to 13^th centuries.

This watchtower for the mosque is one of the oldest extant structures in Central Asia. Reduced to half of its original height of 45 meters (150 feet) by a 15^th century earthquake, it still dominates the site. Nearby a massive hillock, with a few chunks of wall remaining, outlines what remains of the khan’s palace.

A more performative celebration of Kyrgyz history persists as another tradition. That involves recitation of the Epic of Manas, a massive story of a leader in the 1^st millennium and his heirs. The thrilling statue of Manas leaps forward in front of the National Museum in Bishkek, replacing Lenin’s statue in that same spot.

This epic poem in three parts runs over 2 million words, 20 times the length of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey together, arguably the longest such every written – or rather sung. For this poem was passed along orally until written down a few hundred years ago. As might be expected, the reciters of the poem (manaschy) are themselves cultural heroes for their feats of memorization and endurance. Legends abound of those who could recite the epic from a young age, as if inspired by divine forces.

About midway through a concert at our yurt camp one evening at Issyk-Kul, the young son of a musical family recited part of the epic in a rapid patter lost on us. But the music they played – with the unusual technique on traditional instruments – truly linked us to the country’s nomadic past.

For more posts from Kyrgyzstan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

It’s easy for a visitor to forget that she is not at the edge of a sea except for the enveloping Tian-Shan mountain range, whose peaks drain into the lake, and the fresh, chilly water with just a touch of salinity.

In the past, traders followed the Silk Road through here between east and west. Now, during the season, Issyk-Kul’s beaches attract many Kyrgyz visitors from the big cities like Bishkek, and adventurers who savor picturesque hikes in those mountains.

While we traveled along the southern shore of the lake, we were intrigued about the continuing power of superstition and legend among the Kyrgyz, despite the attempts to purge these unholy beliefs by Islamic leaders.

The Kyrgyz tribes were still nomadic when the Russians forced urbanization and farming on them during the late 19^th century. By then Islam was widespread, but lightly treated as a religion. Instead, animist and Zoroastrian beliefs kept their hold on the people, even now just a few generations since that nomadic life.

For example, a common practice in the first millennium was to set stones near grave sites, with carved figures holding a knife in one hand for power and a cup in the other for prayer. These balbals (or “father stones”) are still thought to let the spirits of the dead return.

Even today, women carry burning juniper bush on streets or into houses to ward off evil forces. The most potent of these are revered as shamans. People tie cloths to trees as protections, and bread is so revered that people will ‘rescue’ it if they find a piece on the ground.

Not surprisingly therefore, Issyk-Kul lake is a place of legends: for the towns that were buried over the years, for its supposed role in the spread of the Black Death plague from traders, and more like these…

Seven Bulls and a Miss

Take the Seven Bulls formation of red rock mountains thrust upward in severe angles near the eastern end of the lake. It’s clear now that some forceful geological activity occurred.

But in the past legends explained the phenomenon and the mysterious split boulder nearby. Two rulers fought over a maiden. One of these rulers found no way to resolve the conflict except to deny the other a victory by killing the woman. After ceremoniously sacrificing seven bulls, he murdered her. Ah, but this evil deed was punished by a flood that destroyed him and his entourage within the gorge. The spirit of the bulls found their place in the seven humps of the red mountain.

And that split rock, shaped like a heart, became the lover’s broken heart and a kind of symbol for the country (even though that sign and the electric wires refused to get out of our way).

Fairytale Canyon – A Dragon and a Miss

At first sight, we felt that the strange landscape called Fairytale Canyon, up from the lake, farther west should have its own legendary spirits. And indeed, as we discovered, it comes with its own mythic tale of frustrated love, cities flooded over, and – in this case - a dragon.

Once upon a time, a dragon loved a beautiful maiden who, for reasons known only to her, rejected his love. Maddened by his frustrated love, the dragon cursed the towns in the valley, threatening a flood from a well until she changed her mind. She might have been smart enough to want another mate, but apparently was not smart enough to remember to cover the well at the critical time. So, the waters rose and the towns – and all their maidens - were lost beneath Issyk-Kul. In shock, the dragon hardened into stone of yellow, ochre, red, and orange.

With just a bit of imagination now, you can search the ripples, strata, and peaks of this stunning terrain to find the stony dragon, among rocky turtles, elephants, and other creatures.

We traversed its bumps and snaked through its dry stream beds for hours, thrilling at the multi-faceted, multi-colored splendor.

But, alas, found no beautiful maidens.

Chon-Kemin – Horse Power

For our last adventure at Issyk-Kul, we hooked around the westernmost point of the lake to visit Chon Kemin National Park, in the mountains above the lake’s northern shore.

The upland valley within the park offers a beautifully landscaped hotel with good, basic rooms - in a small village . In the early spring, flowering trees and grass contrasted with the still snowy caps of the mountains. Only the two of us, a couple of Russian women, and a French couple from Miami occupied the place. But, in the season, locals from Bishkek, the capital, pack the place, staying for a week or more to purge their systems with mare’s milk.

Mare’s milk is, to say the least, an acquired taste. For those not inured to its powers, a single serving will – as our friend said euphemistically – make you rush to the toilet and stay for a while. Those whose systems are better conditioned to the milk believe superstitiously in its health-giving qualities.

We decided to skip that treatment, but felt we made ourselves healthier by hiking up the mountainside for a few hours for a vista over the valley.

Passing through poplar forests high over the green valley, we neared the snows and darker fir forests on the far side.

Then we descended a long shallow canyon back to the valley.

A herd of free-range horses – a sleek black stallion and several mares – quietly passed us in the poplar forest. Again, we did not try the milk.

For more posts from Kyrgyzstan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

Karakol to the east of the country was one of these.

By the 1880s Dungan Chinese (Hui Muslims), Kazakh, and Uyger people fled China into the area to join the native Kyrgyz and Turkic Tatars here. The town soon flourished as a trading center.

Notably, these settlers brought their cuisine with them. The Uygers introduced laghman, for example, a stew of vegetables and pulled noodles that we tried one evening.

The Dungan brought their Islamic traditions to the city as well as their cuisine. As with laghman, several of their dishes like Ashlyan-fu (a spicy cold noodle dish) have become hallmarks of the country, while the other ethnic groups have added to the local mix.

We were a bit skeptical about the noodle dish, as the description mentioned a cold jellied addition. But we didn’t hesitate to try it after we sampled some of the local breads in the open-air bazaar.

We happened upon a passageway with a dozen stalls offering the dish.

The server at our stall, chosen at random, quickly served up the bowl (“spicy?” she asked) along with the traditional accompaniment, a fried potato bread. Especially with the spicier version, we relished its savory, filling qualities.

Other than food, the most notable mark of the Dungan presence is their colorful mosque, built originally in 1910 by a Beijing architect. He designed this wholly wooden structure for the Muslim worshippers, including the intricate patterns under the eaves, with interlocking wooden parts and no nails.

Refurbished over the years, it still shows its Chinese origins in design and color – but still has no nails.

Wooden structures adorned with fancy carving became the norm after the old clay houses collapsed in the major earthquake of 1887. Despite the modernization under the Soviet Union and continuing work to renovate the city at some sacrifice to history, many of these wood houses still stand just outside the center of town. Some need extensive repair work.

Others, like this grand wood building once used as a women’s school, have been fixed up.

We stayed in a guesthouse that had transformed one of the old buildings into a kind of Japanese teahouse.

The most impressive of the old structures is the 1895 Holy Trinity Church. The Orthodox Christian Russians built this after the prior church had fallen in that earthquake. The simple, repeated carved patterns that enwrap the dark wood church on the outside rival the impressive onion-dome steeples.

Sadly, the inside has been refurbished to look more contemporary, with plaster walls hiding the old wooden beauty, yet with the dark wooden flooring.

Karakol has changed names frequently. The Tsar renamed it Przhevalsk, in honor of the Russian adventurer Nikolay Przhevalsky, who explored Central Asia from here, then died in Karakol and was buried nearby. As the start of the Soviet Union, the name reverted to Karakol but was changed back to Przhevalsk by Stalin in 1939. With the fall of the Union in 1991, Karakol became Karakol again. The locals are even somewhat confused about the meaning of the town name anyway.

This house near the center of town demonstrated that the mixed past lives on. The emblem of Kyrgyzstan with the eagle appears on the upper left. The symbolic image from its flag is featured in the middle section (a typical lattice atop a yurt’s wood structure surrounded by 40 rays, one for each tribe). But the overall colors and the far rooftop, as well as the double-headed eagle on the far-right building, are all Russia.

As with the town, even the streets have changed names. This renovated wood house, which was home to the woman mayor in Russian times, used to be on Lenin Street but that was renamed after independence. To avoid confusion, both the old and the new street signs appear at the corner of the building.

Once home to many Soviet military personnel, Karakol now caters to local and international tourists interested in the lengthy hiking trails of its nearby mountains or enjoying the huge Issyk-Kul lake to the west.

Even with just 90,000 people, it’s still the fourth largest city in Kyrgyzstan. And perhaps the one with the most interesting cuisine.

For more posts from Kyrgyzstan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

And our drive from Almaty eastward toward Kyrgyzstan promised many, many mountains. These comprise the Tian Shan mountain range, peaks (and valleys) that divide the two countries.

Wherever you go here, there are splendid views, gorgeous mountain lakes, incomparable hikes, high meadows, and unusual rock formations. We were fortunate we could spend enough time there so the spirits of the region could touch us.

Charyn and Black Canyon

The Grand Canyon of Kazakhstan is Charyn, a deep gorge that meanders for over 150 kilometers (just under 100 miles) through part of the Tian Shan range.

We hiked down along a shallow riverbed into the so-called Valley of Castles to marvel at the unusual sandstone formations and reach the charming river deep within.

Along the way, a signboard told of the dualistic nature of early Kazakh beliefs, which despite adherence to Islam, survive from their nomadic traditions and those of their neighbors.

This yin/yang belief inspirits a legend recorded on another signboard. The spirit of the river, Charyn, was charged by other natural spirits with waking a very sleepy figure called Tectonics in order to sustain the upthrust mountains and gorges. Otherwise, the spirit of Erosion would do its slow work to turn the mountains into plains. So far Charyn is doing his job.

Near Charyn we discovered the Black Canyon, a very different and quite picturesque gorge cut through basalt rock. Deep below another section of the Charyn River flows through it out of the green plains.

Saty, Kolsai and Kaindy Lakes

Our last stop in Kazakhstan was the village of Saty, set within a wide valley ringed by snow-topped mountains.

The main attraction for visitors and locals here is a pair of high lakes. The smaller one, Kaindy Lake, feels like a huge well, quite recently formed by a rockslide that dammed up the river. In the water, the remains of trees inundated by water marks the suddenness of the event.

The second, Kolsai, is an elongated mountain lake at 1800 meters (about 6000 feet) in altitude. We could readily see why the second attracts many Kazakhs in the season, most of whom stay for a while at the many hotels, yurt camps, and guesthouses sprouting over the nearby landscape.

While we were there, many locals were paddle-boating around the lake. During the season, it’s likely that most of the hundred-plus of them would be criss-crossing the lake. The more adventurous do take on the challenging hike to a second and third lake at higher altitudes.

As our friend Seitek demonstrates, however, we could still find a quiet spot in the off-season (despite the paddle boats) to contemplate the lovely scene and let the spirit of this lake sing to us.

Otherwise, the lakes felt a bit touristy for us. Fortunately instead, we stayed nearby at a pleasant guesthouse in meadows outside of Saty. There we had only the cattle, horses, and sheep for company – with a vista up a broad valley to the snow-capped mountains.

Lolling on our deck for an afternoon was delightful in itself. But we also enjoyed a three-hour hike up to billowing mountain meadows where the cattle and free-range horses had wandered to graze under the snowy mantle of distant peaks.

Descending into a paradise of a valley, with a snaking stream and wandering horses, we had thought to follow the stream back to our house. That didn’t work out because the stream disappeared into a narrow gorge with no dry passage.

So, instead we followed a few sheep trails up and over the hills in the general direction of our guesthouse. Luckily no canyon blocked our route and we eventually reached the dirt trail we had climbed away from the guesthouse.

Though the Charyn Canyon was dramatic, the quieter pleasures of our Saty hike raised our spirits even more.

For more posts from Kazakhstan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

Tambaly Canyon is way out in the countryside, a group of low jagged hills a few hours drive to the northwest of Almaty. Here you must work hard to view the art, climbing up and down the crumbly paths along the rock faces. But the scrambling is worth it. For this site, dating back four millennia to the Bronze and Iron Ages (2500 BC to 1500 BC), preserves rock art recognized by UNESCO for its quality and quantity.

Some 3000 images teem on the cliffsides of the six sections we visited, many engraved deeply into the rock. Animals of all sorts, groups of figures dancing or hunting, solar gods with sun-heads, and even erotic scenes cover the flat surfaces.

Riders on the storm…One horseback rider heading west and the one on top racing to the east in a remarkably deft representation of speed.

A herd of mountain goats with impossibly long horns, handled by various herders toward the top and what seems to be a snow leopard or other cat. Also at the upper left, a figure of a pregnant woman giving birth…or, as some say, a turtle.

A splendid, more ritualistic, and - to us - unusual set of petroglyphs. The dancing figures at the lower edge to the left are joined by various animals above them. All are celebrating the appearance of solar gods with heads as concentric circles and rays in the shape of balls. Three or four of these very large figures preside across the top of the rockfaces. To the right of the dancing figures, it seems, a human-sized sun god has joined the party…or perhaps they’re shamans channeling the spirits.

Archers and other hunters in the center of this surface pursue two large long-horned bulls, while diverse animals populate the scene.

Nancy completes the long circuit of petroglyphs at Tambaly and heads to the broad plains that lead back to Almaty.

Contemplation and Action at Tanbaly Tas

Despite the confusion of names, Tanbaly Tas is a very different rock art site, a few hours in another direction from Almaty. Though noted by many as a kind of outdoor Buddhist temple, Tanbaly Tas is set by a broad river where the locals mostly enjoy camping as well as the opportunity to climb high on the stony mountain faces looming over the river. (See earlier post about their passion for climbing.)

The climbers literally overlook the handful of engraved Buddhist images and varied texts, so different from Tambaly Canyon.

These date from the 17^th and 18^th century. Buddhist traders following the silk road stopped here to live for a while. So, they carved delicate, ornate images of Buddha into the lower rock faces as a kind of open-air, outdoors temple.

We climbed a bit for a half-hour to see the drawings. That left a lot of time, no, not to do the rock climbing, but wander the river’s edge and spot various birds.

Weighty Modern Art

Leaping forward a few centuries, we visited the newest museum in Almaty, for modern and contemporary art. The strongly declarative name, The Almaty Museum of Art, houses a private collection in a bold, inviting new building funded by the private owner of the works, Nurlan Smagulov.

The museum centers around Smagulov’s 700-piece collection of Kazakh artists, which occupies one large hall on the ground floor. Other large halls feature special exhibitions of mostly Kazakh contemporary artists. A few sculptures grace the compact outdoor courtyard fronting a main road in Almaty. A Fernand Leger piece in ceramic adorns the entry hall.

It’s the collection of non-Kazakh artists that makes the museum a bit odd.

The only other hall on the ground floor houses the major showpiece – and storyline – Richard Serra’s Junction. This massive assemblage of curved corten- steel panels, some hundred tons or more in weight, was purchased in New York. Hauling it over here was a feat in itself, celebrated by a video looping next to the entrance.

Once reassembled by crane in Almaty, part of the museum building was built around it, though the piece was originally intended for outdoors, mainly because nature weathers the steel. Now you would need to tear down that part of the building to remove it, if sold.

As to the art itself, the panels at first seem like barriers, but the four curved openings challenge the visitor to enter and explore. The tight channels soon funnel everyone to a junction suitable for posing, selfies, or even conversation.

Stranger yet, upstairs at the museum, other than a walkway that looks over the Serra piece, the four halls offer just one artwork per hall by a renowned artist: a theatrical video installation space, a permanent video installation by Bill Viola of inverted nudes adrift in something like preservative, a small fantasia of a polka-dotted room by Yayoi Kusama,

and a stunning arced panorama on ruin (below) and redemption (above) by Anselm Kiefer.

That’s it for the upstairs.

Nonetheless, the building and the art were worth a visit, for the price was certainly right – just $1 USD for a senior.

For more posts from Kazakhstan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

Not too many remain of the older wooden houses, as Soviet development first replaced those buildings for growth and then came more recent building of skyscrapers, modern apartments, and malls.

There are also not a lot of notable sites within the city to attract tourists – other than a handful of museums and the mountains that abut the town. Outside town, however, canyons and riverways make Almaty a good central stopping place. But it’s the cityscape of Almaty that excels and entices.

This is a city replete with trees - birches, firs, plane trees, and remnants of the apple orchards of the past. The name means valley of apples; large orchards remain on the outskirts, bursting out in white flowers in the spring and then yielding very, very large and juicy fruit.

These alternate with apricot orchards, with a pinkish flower instead. And tulips in the spring started popping out all over.

As in Astana, people walk here to enjoy the cityscape (at least when they decide to leave behind any of their multiple cars per family). The four-lane roads snarl traffic nearly all the time. Especially on foot, though, one can enjoy a pleasant tree-lined journey along the streets.

Fortunately, many pleasant parks have also outlasted development. Our apartment faced Apta Park, a lengthy park of fountains and walkways that offered a pedestrian-only passageway for many blocks. It’s a favorite of young couples for evening meetups or pre-nuptial photos.

Among the walkers, we saw clusters of school children, mostly in their local school uniforms, heading homeward. Even the youngest seem to have learned how to cross the traffic safely to reach home by themselves. It’s a help that the ‘zebra’ crossings require cars to stop for pedestrians. Students learn three languages in school: Kazakh, Russian (the two co-equal languages of the country) and now English. In the past, the English instruction has remained rudimentary, but seems to be growing in importance with tourism.

The other kind of schooling, as we saw in Astana, is training for all ages in the arts and sports. The ballet and music theatres offer basic and more professional instruction. As we enjoyed in Vilnius once, walking past a conservatory delivered a half-dozen practice performances echoing into the boulevard.

Large sports facilities cover the physical arts. One of these, rock climbing, seems to be a special passion here. The daughter of our city guide had been climbing since age seven. On an excursion outside the city, we were astonished to see people of all ages scaling rock faces in a spot with several difficulty levels.

Rock-climbing aside, Almaty is a bustling and inviting city, with the vibe of a young populace, a delight in outdoor cafes (with endless coffee) or eateries even in chilly weather, and non-stop services like 24/7 groceries and pharmacies. Its renowned multi-level Green Bazaar, a square city block of a structure, houses innumerable stalls for food of all sorts as well as goods. We thoroughly enjoyed shopping amid the bustle and variety of the enormous market. But beware…imported foods (like asparagus) can be very expensive.

Among the countless produce stalls at the Bazaar, perhaps the most noticeable are those that sell horsemeat. As a nomadic people, the Kazakhs would not waste the aging horses they had used for herding, but turned them into a ready food source. That heritage makes horsemeat a staple of the Kazakh diet, offered in so many restaurants as well. The nomads also milked the mares as a dairy source, though the milk reportedly makes a novice drinker live on the toilet.

The city’s largest and most seductive park is Panfilov. At one end, we found a splendid wooden structure once used by officers in the 19^th century. This and the adjacent former military center have become museums instead.

Across from this and a dominating Soviet-era building for the military are dramatic memorial sculptures and an eternal flame honoring the small cadre of Kazakhs that defended Moscow from the German attack of The Great Patriotic War (as they call World War II). We saw in the Almaty historical museum how proud Kazakhs are of their brave resistance to the Nazis.

Continuing within the park, past a fir-lined walkway of trees planted by various world leaders to honor the Guardsmen, one arrives at another section of broad lanes where still stands the Russian Orthodox Ascension Church.

Built under Tsarist rule, this wholly wooden structure (with no nails) us the second tallest wooden church in the world. It survived the devastating 1911 earthquake here, as well as the official USSR policy against religious practice by serving as offices for public organizations.

Panfilov Park is near the center of two informal divisions of Almaty, the wealthier upper town which gently slopes southward to the neighboring Shymalov Mountains and the flatlands of the lower town as they spread into the plains of the steppes. Almaty can reach into the 40s C (110s F) so any gain in altitude helps. People flock to Shymalov in the summer for relief, and in the winter can ski the mountain just a half hour from town.

That informal divide of the town resembles the broader economic one. Though its resources have made Kazakhs a wealthy society overall, a wide divide remains between the well-off, who can pay for expensive private education, for example, and the rest. Yet, with free education and healthcare, even lower earners have a good foundation.

In the past, the proximity to the mountains was a very mixed blessing. The city has been earthquake prone, making the survival of those old wooden structures all the more remarkable. Worse, the city had frequently been overrun by massive mudslides as the mountain lakes overflowed, sweeping debris through the streets. Now, new dams and barriers, emplaced along the Shymalov mountainside, protect the city.

If we returned to stay longer in Kazakhstan, we would happily settle into Almaty – enjoying the pleasurable city, the plains nearby, and the mountains – mudslides and earthquakes bedamned.

For more posts from Kazakhstan, click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

We awoke to a brilliant sun, little wind, a bevy of white swans on the edge of the Caspian Sea, but no water available at the visitor center where we spent the night.

We had done the east and the north. It was time to head to the westernmost part of Mangystau, a large peninsula jutting into the Caspian.

Our first treat was a drive through another thrilling section of the Kampamsay canyon, which we had considered for camping on day 2. But, to start, we ventured inside the rock of the canyon walls to visit Shakpak Ata, a 14^th and 15^th century mosque carved all the way through a narrow limestone arm of the canyon. It dates from the time of the Golden Horde out of Mongolia, the main cultural origin for the Khazak people.

A set of four chambers issued from a central hall virtually “supported” by ornate columns, with walls replete with graffiti - drawings of animals, hunters, and other figures. The central hall also featured an open dome, carved from its roof for light.

Continuing on the rough road through the canyon, we were treated to other formations of mesas, including slices of varied colors alternating with the shining white chalk.

One ridge rose out of a whipped cream effusion of white stone.

At the end, we climbed at last to a flat top, where troughs offered water for camels, and enjoyed a splendid view over what we had just traversed.

Crossing hours of scrub-strewn plains for our last stop, we kept on westward to a rocky shore of the Caspian. There we found one of the strangest sites of the trip, Cape Zhigyigan. A vision of chaos, the vast bowl before us comprised a jumble of rock formations and strata, as if a huge explosion had broken the mountain there, upheaving mesas at myriad angles.

It was quite a spot to enjoy our last meal with Daniel, a reprise of his toasted bread, hummus, cheese, cucumber and tomato. We shared the large open shelter with three generations of a local family, who were excited to meet us…and learn that Barry was from Boston, the name on the young boy’s cap.

From there, it was an easy drive back to Aktau on mostly asphalt roads, the finish of some 2000 kilometers of tough driving. Our hotel had somehow stored our left luggage in a room that the current staff couldn’t figure out, but a joint treasure hunt finally uncovered our goods.

We said farewell to Daniel, affirming how thrilled we were with our experience, with so much extraordinary scenery and birds to see. The car proudly displayed the mud-spatters we had gathered on the rutted roads in three days, as we took a final photo.

We were more than ready for a hot shower, a bit of relaxing, and the task of repacking for our flight out of Aktau and the wondrous Mangystau.

For more posts from Kazakhstan (including Days 1 and 2 in Mangystau), click here. For more posts from Asia, click here.

Day 2 Northern Mangystau

To read Part 1, our first day in otherworldly eastern Mangystau, click here.

Our second day dawned in clouds, but the rain of the first day had passed. We spent it driving north past more striated mesas, stopping to hike in and around and up them – and found a valley of stone balls as well. Though the scenery was gorgeous and the day turned sunny, a vicious wind whipped up the cold air.

We began along more dirt roads in the Airakty valley, a huge swath of green grass with sheep, horses and camels – all encircled by both mesas with colorful striations and eroding jagged peaks. Various birds of the steppes kept their music going to catch our attention.

We then passed the famous yurt-shaped formation of Sherkala Mountain, a huge colorful confection adrift in the landscape.

As if that was not enough color, we scrambled to a windy plateau up the narrow canyon of the lonely Kolkala tract. That’s a rugged pile of sandstone, clay, and mineral deposits rising in varied formations all by itself out of the plains of the steppe.

Sheltering in the lee of the canyon, Daniel surprised us again with a lunch of hummus, pan-fried toasts, crisp cucumbers, and tomatoes. He does vegetarian quite well, we noted.

“And now we go to the Valley of the Balls,” he said, as we packed up and headed over more rutted roads.

We had seen volcanic balls before, as well as those formed within the ocean. But this vast collection of enormous stone balls, situated at the top of a ridge overlooking a grassy valley, astonished us. It seemed we were among the playthings of giants.

In reality, they formed over millions of years ago when the area was an ocean. A conch shell gradually accreted other mollusks around it, growing larger and larger until the pressure of the ocean and sand fossilized the mass into a ball. As the waters receded, these hardened balls remained in place, some up to 3 or more meters (10 feet) in diameter.

We hoped to end our day camping in Kampamsay Gorge, a narrow canyon of white clay and varied hues near the Caspian. However, the icy wind whipped through the canyon with even greater force here. Tenting would be tough enough and cooking almost impossible. As we left, mountain climbing camels seemed unfazed by the conditions.

Luckily again, the nearby visitor center – with a few large rooms in a chalet-style building - was open, though not quite ready for the prime season yet. Our room offered four single beds and lots of space. Only one other couple took advantage of the place. They were Italians from the Dolomites, spending 10 days in Mangystau alone, and a pleasure to converse with.

For dinner, we took advantage of a sheltered BBQ nook outside the visitor center. Daniel prepared a hearty soup of lentils and French mushroom stock, to which we added our extras…tofu, adjika, and soy sauce. It was just right on a cold night, as the sun slowly lit up the sky behind the low-lying hills in the distance.

Before bed, we stepped out into the surrounding dark to see the stars, dense and astoundingly bright, with no distracting moonlight. It was about as good as one could want. Then a cold shower and off to sleep.

“Go to Mangystau,” our Kazakh friend advised. “It’s the best part of the country.” But we needed to commit five days of our trip, including nearly six hours of flying between the core of our itinerary and Aktau - the ‘wild west’ of Kazakhstan on the edge of the Caspian Sea.

Once there, we drove nearly 2000 kilometers (1300 miles) including many hours on gouged dirt trails - confronting rainy conditions one day, cold and whipping winds another.

Here’s why it was worth all that trouble.

Day 1 Eastern Mangystau

The evening before, we had repacked all our belongings so we could travel with minimal baggage and leave the rest at our Aktau hotel. The forecast was rain throughout the day and cold at night. So, half of what we took, it seemed, was just to stay warm and dry.

This first day took us to the eastern part of Mangystau, with our capable guide and driver Daniel. Mangystau sprawls across 165,000 square kilometers (64,000 square miles), twice the size of Austria. Its different sections offer a wildly diverse landscape – from steppe grassland to canyon to painted mountains. Today was our chance to see the renowned landscape of Bozzhyra and Kyzylkup tract. Fortunately, though the day remained overcast, we arrived in dry conditions at the picnic area of the overlook. Various colorful striations of the conical hills and eroded valleys spread before us, but still so distant.

It’s heading off-road through that landscape that the wonders reveal themselves. This was the first of those notorious Mangystan tracks we took, rough and rutted due to vehicles ploughing through. Sometimes it is too muddy to drive, we heard. Again, we were lucky. The rain had not ruined the track.

Traversing a plateau of modest interest, we suddenly came upon the edge of the broad depression of Bozzhyra – an otherworldly vision.

Here, at the edge of a salt flat, an ancient sea has deposited limestone, clay, iron, and other minerals – all sculpted into phantasmagoric peaks and valleys.

A different lookout point hovered over a narrow island far below.

We dared step onto a cliff edge looming over the island, as a Kazakh man with his family snapped our picture there, and we did his.

Our good luck continued as the rain held off until we left the area. Back at the rest stop overlook, we took over a shelter and enjoyed a lunch Daniel had prepared: bread stuffed with potato and cheese, like a borek, along with cucumbers and tomatoes and tea. Daniel continued to surprise. In a land where meat is staple of a meal, he had never heard of vegetarians before, but did a great job with food throughout our trip, including finding tofu, an item he had never heard of before.

He had, however, heard of Tiramisu, at least in part because of the formation we were about to visit within the colored streaks visible from the picnic area.

“Tiramisu” is the popular name for the spectacular eroded cluster of hills painted in many shades of red and rose and gray, amid ancient white chalk rock.

We wandered for a while through narrow gullies carved by water, rather like rainbow-hued arroyos.

With rain expected to return in the evening, we opted to shelter indoors instead of camping. A modest guest house in the small oil town of Shetpe had a room for us, where several bicyclists also bedded down for the night. Under an awning, we cooked our meal together, a stir-fry of rice, vegetables, tofu, chili pepper, adjika hot sauce, and soy sauce. And then to bed.

In the 4^th century BC, the Scythian or Saka people occupied the area now known as Kazakhstan. Consistent with their religious beliefs about the afterlife, they buried their important people in tumuli. The dead were presumed to advance to another realm, so they were richly adorned in gold and entombed with swords and other necessities like horses (also arrayed in gold) for the afterlife. To them, the metal represented fire and the sun, elements of the heavens.

The first discovery of a gold-bedecked person was in 1969, in the southern part of the country. This so-called Golden Man was buried with some 4000 pieces of gold jewelry on his clothing. Since then, eight men and women have been found by archeologists, each outfitted in costumes with golden decoration.

On display in the National Museum in Astana is a recreation of the outfit of the original Golden Man and some of the others found. Their adornments and other objects disinterred from the tumuli make for a stunning collection of artifacts in gold at the museum. Their quality rivalled the work we saw from the early Colchis artisans in Georgia.

Here are some examples of Golden Man jewelry from the tumuli: at top left, a tiger head; top right, a wolf for a buckle; then down to a deer’s head buckle, and then below two parts of a dagger sheath in the form of a deer and horse.

And three more examples at the Museum of past artistry. The first, a stone image from 2nd to 3rd millennium BC…the Tobol Thinker. Rodin came later.

Second, a bronze hunting scene with archer and zebu bulls, 6th to 2nd century BC, in the form of a candle holder.

Lastly, a much more recent example of carpeting craft where woolen pieces are pressed into others for depth, in a kind of inlay.

Beyond the historic value of the find, the Golden Man became a symbol of independence after the breakup of the Soviet Union and a touchstone for the Kazakhs of their cultural richness. Soon after, the Golden Man toured the world to dazzle people and herald Kazakh independence.

The more recent origins of the culture, however, were the 6^th century influx of Turkic nomads and the 13^th century conquest of the region by the Mongol Empire. That mixture became the Kazakh Khanate by the 15^th century, whose leaders converted to Sunni Islam and are still celebrated today in the country. Since then, the Kazakh land has received an unending immigrant flow of over a hundred ethnicities and religions, making for a very rich pot of Kazakh stew.

Even so, we were a bit surprised to find resources devoted to encouraging excellence in many areas, beyond just the free universities. Across Astana, there are “palaces” devoted to ballet training and performance, theatre and musical arts, as well as sports training of all sorts including martial arts.

We were not as surprised to find two large mosques in Astana, rivalling those of the Middle East in grandeur. 70% of the country is Muslim - mainly Sunni but without the rigorous strictures practiced in Saudi Arabia. Older and villager women often wear a white wrap as a head covering, but, in the cities, others generally dress like westerners. Prayers draw people perhaps once a day or on Friday alone. Alcohol and cigarettes are quite common.

The slightly older Hazret Sultan mosque accommodates five to ten thousand people for Friday prayers. It is an elegant and inviting structure just off Independence Square in the new city center, with a hostel and canteen for visitors.

As prayers rise to heaven, the inside rises from below in muted fashion to display increasingly gilded designs up to the effusive dome in the colors of the Kazakh flag.

The newer one, the Grand or Republican Mosque, sprawls on a huge tract at the outskirts of today’s Astana. This mosque offers space for up to 250,000 to pray, plus an inexpensive dining hall, with extensive underground and above ground parking. As the largest in Central Asia, it has become a symbol of the Kazakh role in Islam. Its understated grandeur from the outside includes slender skyscraping minarets and numerous blue domes.

Inside, the usual open space of the vaulted central prayer hall also feels muted, with subtle decoration in traditional Kazakh patterns along the walls and columns, as well as throughout the massive woven carpet.

Whether celebrating ancient practices or opening space for devotion to Allah, the Kazakhs continue to take pride in their independence, national history, and depth of culture.